by Helen Yaffe, 30 March 2020
Just weeks ago, in late February 2020, US Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders was vilified by the US establishment for acknowledging education and healthcare achievements in revolutionary Cuba.
Now, as the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic sweeps the globe, the island’s medical prowess is back in the spotlight, first because the Chinese National Health Commission listed the Cuban anti-viral drug Interferon alfa-2b among the treatments it is using for Covid-19 patients. Effective and and safe in the therapy of viral diseases including Hepatitis B and C, shingles, HIV-Aids and dengue, the Cuban anti-viral drug has shown some promise in China and the island has now received requests for the product from 45 countries.
Then, on 21 March a 53-strong Cuban medical brigade arrived in Lombardy, Italy, at that time the epicentre of the pandemic, to assist local healthcare authorities. While images spilled out over social media, little was said in mainstream outlets. The medics were members of Cuba’s Henry Reeve Contingent, which received a World Health Organisation (WHO) Public Health Prize in 2017 in recognition for providing free emergency medical aid. In addition to Italy, Cuba sent medical specialists to 37 of the 59 countries in which their healthcare workers were already operating, to treat Covid-19 cases.
Desperate to undermine the Cuban lesson in solidarity, on 24 March the US State Department tweeted that the Cuban motive was ‘to make up the money it lost when countries stopped participating in the abusive program.’ The object of its ire? Medical programmes under which Cuban personnel are contracted by host governments to provide healthcare that is free at the point of delivery to poor and underserved populations overseas. Reaping the benefits of socialist state investments in education and health, Cuban medical exports have emerged in the context of a punitive and extra-territorial 60-year US blockade that prevents Cuba pursuing normal international trade. The contracts provide revenue to the Cuban state, as well as higher salaries to participants. Under pressure from the Trump administration, Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia have ended contracts, in order to eliminate a vital source of revenues for Cuba, leaving millions of people without healthcare. The strategy of sabotaging Cuban medical exports originates in the Bush-era ‘Medical Parole Programme’, which encouraged Cubans to abandon missions in return for US citizenship, and was not ended by Obama until his final days in office in January 2017.
More:
https://mondediplo.com/outsidein/cuban-medical-covid
= new reply since forum marked as read